The Hogwarts Four
by AureliaAndMidnight
Summary: When legends are passed down, some details always tend to get skewed. This is the story of how the founders met, became friends, and started Hogwarts. Godric has the attention span of a goldfish, Helga is being ignored, Sal is up to something, and somebody really ought to tell Rowena not to do that sort of thing with Godric's sword. (Cover made by the amazing suavable)
1. Chapter 1

"Salazar, you ass, come back here!" Godric roared as he thundered through the forest. Birds toppled off their branches and leaves shook free of their trees as the large, burly man crashed through the foliage. Indeed, legend would later say that the clouds themselves trembled as he chased his good friend, Salazar Slytherin, through what would later be known as the Forbidden Forest.

Of course, the clouds did not tremble. Godric may have been a skilled wizard, and a huge one, but he was far too practical to use his energy to make the clouds tremble. _Can_ clouds even tremble?

His mind did tend to wander. Sometimes there was an "unfortunate disconnection between his brain and his mouth", as Salazar often said. So as he yelled invectives after the dark brown cloak of his friend, his mind was busy. He was noting the lack of security caused by, ah, thundering through a forest. He also noted the position of the sun, the turns he had taken, and the fact that his foot was really itchy and he wanted to scratch at it _but Sal, Solomon damn him, had stolen his sword_.

"You do not touch people's things!" he yelled, "Especially their swords!"

Yes, his mind noted the unintentional double entendre, but a half second too late. Salazar's cackling laughter echoed through the sunlit trees. Godric cursed again. He was getting out of breath by this point.

His wand at the ready (14 inches, unyielding ash, and a mysterious core he would take the secret of to his grave) and his eyes alert, he waited for any brief glimpse of Sal as he ran.

He almost stepped on a squirrel.

Whoops, his mind noted.

There, a flash of pale, skinny arm through the trees. " _Petrificus Totalus_!" the massive bearded man yelled. The spell rebounded off of a glimmer of silvery blue. "Damn," he cursed. The edge of the anti-apparition wards was getting closer. It was get the thrice-accursed thief now, or never.

Grinning devilishly, Godric wordlessly caused the earth beneath Sal's feet to slowly become stickier. By the time his friend noticed what was happening, it was too late. He used the foothold (heh, he thought) the earth already had to swallow Sal's feet.

He heard his friend curse viciously under his breath. "That was a new trick," Sal said, almost conversationally, as Godric disarmed him.

"A shame I had to waste its debut on you," Godric grumbled. He then looked pointedly at Sal's belt, which, rather conspicuously, lacked his sword. "Where've you put it?"

Sal just looked steadily at him.

Sighing, Godric said, "If you needed it for some mysterious ritual, I'd understand. But why couldn't you just _ask_?"

He shrugged. "I needed the weapon of a friend, unwillingly taken." Seeing Godric's confusion, Sal cracked a small smile. "I know, it is a strange combination." Godric _harrumphed_ , then stiffened. "Sal, we have company," the big man said quietly. The mirth in Salazar's eyes faded to steel. Without another word, Godric released Sal from the ground and tossed back his wand (12 inches, redwood, selkie hair core, flexible). They stood back to back, scanning the trees. Godric was acutely alert of how unprotected they were at the moment. Medieval England, after all, was a dangerous place.

Especially with unbound rogue wizards running around. Wizards and witches bound to caravans, or to lords, or to towns—they followed _rules_. The ones that gallivanted throughout the countryside, much like Sal and himself, lacked any unifying oversight.

Godric was prepared for any rogue wizards, however. He'd run into enough of them in the seven years since he'd been released from his apprenticeship, along with Sal.

What Godric was _not_ prepared for was the sudden appearance of what appeared to be a young muggle woman tripping out of the bushes to his left. She was really rather pretty, with long, wavy red hair, a voluptuous figure, and creamy skin. What was a woman like her doing so far in these woods? Godric wondered. Perhaps she had gotten lost?

She landed on her hands and knees and cursed rather vehemently, ruining the illusion of a delicate maiden. Godric cringed inwardly. He really needed to stop underestimating beautiful women.

Sal had stayed perfectly alert the entire time, obviously, because he was Salazar Slytherin and probably the only wizard who could beat Godric in a fair duel. Not that Sal ever played fair, of course, but by this point Godric's mind was rambling.

"Who're you?" Sal asked suspiciously, wand twitching in his hand. The woman picked herself off the ground and flipped her hair back from her face. "A nobody," she said smoothly, but her hand, which had been going for her own wand, froze. Pretty, _and_ smart, Godric noted.

Sal gave a tight-lipped smile. "How'd you get through the wards?"

"What wards?" asked a voice full of laughter.

Godric whipped his head upwards, Sal's gaze also slipping for a fraction of a second—

The woman on the ground had her wand pointed at him in an instant, and another woman in the trees (crouching, her black hair cut short and wearing...were those _men's_ trousers?) already had her wand trained on Godric.

"Easy, ladies," Godric said. "We're not looking for any trouble."

The woman crouched on a branch above them tilted her head, midnight hair swaying in the afternoon breeze. Her eyes narrowed in calculation. "Neither are we. Where is Ragnuk's blade, Godric Gryffindor?"

"At home," Godric lied smoothly. It wouldn't do to let them know of his current quarrel with Sal. But why was this woman familiar to him? She knew his name and his sword—which wasn't that uncommon, since he'd won several duels and competitions across England—but there was a memory lurking there.

The woman then shifted slightly to look at Sal. "Where is Ragnuk's blade? I can see the imprint of its magic on your palm."

Godric's mind did a quick double-take as he stared at the woman. The only woman sensitive enough to see magic imprints he had ever heard tales of…a memory of a drunken night in a tavern pushed its way to the front of his mind. A woman, with black hair done up in coiled plaits,and a fine-looking dress, with a wand in her boot and a tinkling laugh…

" _Rowena?_ " he asked, incredulous.

"The one and only," Rowena said, a small smile finally stretching across her austere face.

"I'm here too, you realize?" said the woman who had taken a tumble. Her hand was on her hip and her eyes sparked with malice. "I really _hate_ being ignored."

Sal paled as her wand hand twitched.

"What in Solomon's name are you doing out here?" Godric asked, still flabbergasted. He lowered his wand hand and motioned for Sal to do the same.

"Looking for you," Rowena said, grinning wryly. "Or, to be more specific, your sword." She then glanced at Sal. "I'm Rowena Ravenclaw," she told him. "And I would shake your hand, but it took an awful lot of work to get up here in the first place. Unless you'd like to come up…?"

Sal shook his head. "A pleasure to meet you, Rowena," he said instead, his gaze calculating.

"We were looking for magical plants, too!" chimed in the other woman, gaze narrowing at Sal's wand hand. "You're not going to attack, are you?" she asked suspiciously.

Sal looked at Godric, who shook his head. "No," said Sal, and the woman also dropped her wand hand. "Helga Hufflepuff, at your service," she said, and dropped into a shallow curtsey. Her smile was huge and blinding as her pretty blue eyes crinkled.

"Salazar Slytherin," Sal said, taking her hand. He smiled crookedly, but his eyes were still cold. "My friends call me Sal." he kissed the back of her hand, and Helga's smile widened.

Rowena was watching them interact from the trees, leaning against the trunk and smirking. "Helga, darling," she said, "you're making poor Godric jealous." Godric flushed and Helga began to laugh. She took her hand from Sal and offered it to Godric, who turned it into a handshake. He winked at her, and she blushed.

"Now that introductions are completed, I really would like to ask if we may borrow your sword," Rowena said. "Ragnuk had quite an interesting idea for what it could do in a blood ritual, and he was so kind as to share it with Helga and I."

"Ragnuk never tells anybody his secrets," Godric said, surprised. Helga laughed. "No, he never tells. But he _is_ a goblin, and goblins are rather partial to gold."

"You bought a secret from Ragnuk?" Sal asked, now his turn to be incredulous. "How much gold do you even have—wait, that's the wrong question. How little gold do you have now?"

"Actually, quite a sizeable amount. Mercenaries are paid rather a lot, you see," Helga grinned.

Godric started to laugh. "Of course. Of _course_ you two are mercenaries." His deep, booming laugh filled the trees. "I'd expect nothing less from you, Rowena."

"And what of you?" Rowena asked. "What have you been doing since we parted ways?"

Sal smiled slightly. "If you want to talk, we should probably do it at my cottage. That's where the sword is, after all." Godric turned to him, eyebrows furrowed. "But I looked there!" he cried.

"Did you notice anything in the northwest corner?" Sal asked.

"No."

Sal's grin rivaled Helga's. "Well, I've got a surprise for you, then," he said, rather excitedly. "Come on," he then said to Rowena, and beckoned to Helga. "It's only a ten minute walk away."

"I'll follow through the trees," Rowena replied, and Helga was perfectly content to walk.

"What are you doing?" Godric muttered quietly to Sal. The wiry man was up to something. Sal shrugged. "It was either duel in the middle of a forest, where we'd be at a disadvantage, or figure out if they're trustworthy on our home court. Do you trust Rowena?"

Godric thought for a second. "No," he admitted. "Neither do I," said Sal. "Better to feel them out at my house than when we have two wands trained at us, right?"

"Right," Godric agreed.

Rowena's smile flashed through his mind. She was scary intelligent, that woman. He trusted her less than he could throw her (which, alright, was probably pretty far). And why would she need his sword, especially for a blood ritual? Those were dangerous, as they could go terribly wrong.

And Helga was a mystery. Frightening one minute and oddly cheery the next...where had Rowena picked this woman up, anyway? She was powerful, Godric knew. He could sense a strong magical aura around her. Plus she had a translation rune hanging around her neck, much like the ones Godric and Sal kept in their pockets. So she must not have been from around here.

They would have to tread lightly around these two. Mercenaries. Hmph. Always far too mysterious for their own good.


	2. Rowena's Interlude

**ROWENA'S INTERLUDE**

 _Just after finishing her apprenticeship, years before_

Something grew inside her soul, the rot creeping through her veins. Perhaps there were no physical symptoms, but her brain felt fit to burst. She lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling—blue eyes dull and unfocused. She groaned, turned over, and whacked her head against her pillow.

Rowena Ravenclaw was utterly, interminably, excruciatingly _bored_.

After finishing one's apprenticeship under an accomplished witch or wizard, one had to serve his or her community for a year before being allowed to take to the roads as a journeyman. It was a strange rule, and was more tradition than law, but Rowena's master had been a stickler for these kinds of things so Rowena was stuck.

Stuck, in her tiny, backassward town where everybody knew everybody and your business was everyone's business. Where the most strenuous work Rowena had to do for the non-magicals was healing fevers, chopping trees, and maybe saving the occasional child from a perilous situation—usually by way of a quick Levitation Charm.

It was _maddening,_ enough to drive Rowena insane. To be brilliant but unable to use that brilliance, Rowena decided, was possibly the worst form of mental torture she had experienced. She wasn't allowed to create spells until she was a journeywoman, several potions she wanted to make required ingredients she couldn't acquire within a ten-mile radius of her town, magical creatures tended to avoid humans, and any dangerous, arcane rituals postulated a one-mile radius of empty land to be conducted safely!

Either Rowena locked herself in her basement for the eight more months she had left to slowly lose her mind, or she found something interesting to do.

She was so bored she wondered if killing someone, perhaps, would make things interesting. Guiltily, she looked out her window and wished on a star that a band of brigands would try to attack, seeing her town as easy pickings, so she had an excuse to test out her dueling skills.

Sure, there were other magicals in the village. Rowena had already beat all of them, into the ground, on several occasions. There was no point in dueling people like them if they could be taken down with a Tickling Charm, of all things.

And so she prayed, that night, as she so infrequently did, that something interesting might happen tomorrow.

The next day, Rowena rose to greet a rainy sky. The clouds hung low over the rooftops and the air was humid. The atmosphere was tense, anticipatory. Rowena thought that they were waiting for the rain.

Rowena was wrong.

"Did you see the stranger?" asked her neighbor.

"Did you see him?" whispered the little girl Rowena had saved from a tree once.

"Did he see you?" asked the little old lady who lived on the edge of the town that Rowena delivered food to.

Rowena tilted her head and scrutinized the old woman. "No," she replied.

The old woman nodded. "Just as well," she said. "Mind he doesn't see you, dear. He will bring your destruction."

Rowena raised an eyebrow. She had never taken much stock in prophecies, but Fiona had never really been completely wrong before. To be the seventh daughter of the seventh son granted you gifts, the legends said. And Fiona, a recluse she may be, had _something_ stirring in her bones that wasn't quite the magic Rowena was used to.

Old magic, magic older than the earth. Her master had said old magic came from a different world, and Rowena might have believed him when she was younger. All she knew now was that Fiona's magic was strange and oddly powerful, and her visions were often correct.

So she heeded Fiona's advice and kept to the shadows that day. She glimpsed the stranger once or twice, peering from an alleyway under her cloak. She saw that he was tall and bulky with phoenix-red hair.

And this was the man Fiona called her destruction?

Rowena might have laughed if she were a less wary person, but she couldn't stop from imagining the various scenarios where the man would be her downfall.

Would she fall in love with him, only for him to love another woman, causing her to die of a broken heart?

(Laughable. She would not be so foolish as to fall in love with a man who would not love her back, much less die of it.)

Would he kidnap and kill her?

(How boring. Of course not.)

But Rowena couldn't help but mull over the word "destruction". Not death, but destruction. The wording of prophecies was always very deliberate, if vague. What would she consider her destruction? Certainly not her death. She did not fear death, in any of its forms. Perhaps this made her foolhardy. Perhaps is made her naive.

(Or perhaps it made her wise?)

To answer the question of what Rowena would consider her destruction, she began with what she valued the most. She valued many things—loyalty, ambition, cunning, and intelligence. Drive. Curiosity. But of them all, her favorite was power.

Rowena _liked_ being powerful. It was probably her one love other than maybe learning new spells. Rowena's drug of choice was the feeling when one holds people in the palm of your hand as they ask if they should dance for you. Power for the sake of power, she thought. So perhaps if she saw the stranger she would get the power she wanted, only for it to be taken away.

Young Rowena was sure that that would break her. She was sure that losing her sway would snap her heart in two.

So when she heard that the man had left the next day, early in the morning, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

She would not be broken today.

It was perhaps a few hours after the man left that Rowena felt that insidious boredom again creeping into her bones.


	3. Chapter 2

"I apologize for the mess," Sal called as he walked inside his cottage. The place was a modest, but mostly clean thing sitting by a small stream. It looked incredibly nondescript, perhaps the house of a hermit or a researcher, positioned arbitrarily in a sunny clearing. But Godric knew better. He and Sal had spent months looking for an intersection of ley lines to build his house atop. They had found a cave where two intersected, but Sal was deathly afraid of bats—so that was out. There had been one on a mountaintop, but to build a house there would have been far too dangerous. The clearing had been a stroke of good luck.

Ley lines, or the lines of raw magic that crisscrossed the earth, made magic both stronger and easier to use. If one's reserves were depleted, an accomplished magician could draw directly from the ley line. Sal, with his numerous experiments and tendency to overwork his magical core, needed to be able to draw from ley lines. An intersection of them was doubly powerful.

Godric looked around as he stepped over the threshold, ducking his head slightly. Well, his cottage was usually mostly clean. Today, potions were strewn about, some sitting precariously, lidless, on the pages of opened books. There was a plate of half-eaten food laying on Sal's unmade cot, and a pair of trousers hung off a chair.

"Sal, did you get any sleep at all?" Godric asked.

Sal looked at him, raising an eyebrow, then plucked an empty potion bottle from his wash bucket and tossed it to Godric. He sniffed, and the smell of an Invigoration Draught registered. He glanced back at the wash bucket and muttered a quick Identification Charm, twitching his wand.

He narrowed his eyes at Sal and opened his mouth to speak. Over five of the eleven bottles in the bucket were Invigoration Draughts. Doing some quick mental math, that meant Sal hadn't slept in...at least two days.

But before he could speak, Sal's eyes darted to the doorframe, where Helga and Rowena were coming in. Godric got the message: not now. He nodded.

"You have some impressive wards, Sal," Rowena noted, glancing over her shoulder.

"Non-magical repelling ward, muffling ward, protection against wild animals…" Sal grinned smugly. "I've got the works."

"And an intent ward, if I felt that right," Rowena mused. "Repello Inimicum. So you had another goal in inviting us over."

Damn. Sharp as ever, that woman.

"I would offer you refreshments, but I don't have any," Sal said, dodging the statement." Rowena laughed. "That's fine."

Helga remained quiet, taking in the place. When she looked at the northwest corner, she clicked her tongue. "Is that a ward, or something else?"

"How—" Sal began.

"There's a slight shimmer around the edges. If Gryffindor here only did a quick scan, he wouldn't have noticed it."

Sal walked over to the corner and grabbed a fistful of what looked like empty air, before he tapped his wand on it, muttering to himself. A sword began to materialize.

"It's not true invisibility, more like camouflage," Sal said, rather sheepishly. "I was looking for a true charm, but this one works pretty well. I don't know what to call it, though."

"A Camouflage Charm?" Godric wondered out loud.

"No, those already exist. It was the basis for this charm," Sal said. Rowena pursed her lips. "Interesting. It creates an illusion of empty space but for the shimmer…"

"Disillusionment, maybe?" Helga said.

"'Disillusioned' means something else entirely, though," Godric said.

Sal shrugged. "Well, the name is irrelevant anyway. It works, at least." He smiled tiredly. Godric gave him ten minutes, an hour if he pushed it, before Sal collapsed from sheer exhaustion. With two long strides, Godric crossed the room and opened a chest by the bed. He fished out an Invigoration Draught and tossed it to Sal, who drank it gratefully. "There, not you won't topple over,' he said brusquely.

Rowena watched this interaction with narrowed eyes and a cool smile. "So, is it alright if we borrow the sword?" she asked. Sal crossed his arms. "Depends on what you need it for," he said neutrally.

"A blood ritual, like we said," Helga replied. Her expression was cagey, Godric saw.

"But what for?" Sal pressed, before abruptly changing tack. "Will it damage the sword?" he asked.

Helga and Rowena exchanged glances. "It shouldn't," Rowena said slowly, then paused. "No," she then said, more firmly. "The shrivelfig should stabilize the ritual," Helga added.

"And price-wise," says Helga's companion, "we can pay." She took out a heavy-looking pouch and set it on an open spot on Sal's worktable. "We have an alchemist friend back home and he made us some gold for a favor."

Godric opened the pouch to find several little gold nuggets rolling around and tumbling over each other. One quick charm later confirmed that it was real.

"It's a deal," Godric boomed. Rowena's smile, while not as blinding as Helga's, nevertheless lit up the room.

"On one condition," Sal cut in. Rowena's smile grew cold. "I'm rather wary of conditions," she confessed.

"This one is benign," Sal promised. "Just let us come see?"

The two women exchanged a glance. "It's a deal," Helga confirmed, and shook hands with Sal and Godric both.

One Side-Along Apparition later, the four magicians were perched precariously on a precipice, peeking at the phalanx of pigeons pitching over the pulchritudinous sea below. No, not pigeons, Godric thought. Seagulls. A shame that "seagulls" didn't start with a "p". Perhaps another bird…? Annoyingly, his mental word games were interrupted when he felt wards go up.

Standard ward to repel those without magic, a ward to repel animals, and a strange, almost golden ward he couldn't identify. His eyes connected with Sal's. Feeling a mental prod at his shields, he allowed a brick to disintegrate and let Sal's voice come through. "Cave Inimicum, to ward off enemies, combined with a rather strong Salvia Hexia. They certainly don't want to be interrupted."

"I haven't heard of those two," Godric replied, intrigued in spite of himself. "And certainly not used in conjunction."

"It's an advanced form of warding," Sal said. "Definitely Rowena. Helga's strengths don't seem to lie in that area, but where they do, I haven't been able to tell. They both have strong mental shields."

Godric gave a mental nod, and Sal withdrew from his mind. He fixed the hole in the impenetrable brick wall surrounding his thoughts and then turned his attention back to their two new...acquaintances. Rowena was holding his sword and was currently inspecting it. Helga was drawing a five-pointed star in the dirt while scattering herbs. Sal was looking at the herbs, eyes narrowed in thought. Knowing Sal, he was probably currently categorizing them all and filing the combination used in his steel trap of a mind.

His mind was literally a steel trap, came the dry thought unbidden. Godric's mouth twisted into a wry smirk as he recalled the one and only time he had ever ventured into Sal's mind uninvited. It had not been an experience he wanted to repeat. The man kept his shields tight, to keep amateurs out, but anyone with more than a passing knowledge of the Mind Arts would find a crack in his defenses. Feeling good about themselves, they would slip inside, as Godric had done. Then Sal's offense would crack down on the hapless intruder and shred their mind.

Well, not completely. But enough to make them think twice, thrice, then four times about venturing in there again.

Godric liked his brick walls just fine, thank you.

"Done," Rowena announced, startling him out of his thoughts. She was about to pour a potion onto the blade of Godric's sword, which was lying in the center of the star, before she paused. "You should probably key yourself to the wards. There's a nasty 'enemy' clause in one of them that could hurt you if you do something...ill-advised."

The two wizards nodded and allowed a trickle of their magicks to reach for the wardstone Rowena had placed. With the permission of both her magic and Helga's, they keyed themselves into the wards.

After they had finished, Rowena's eyes opened and she sent her companion an almost excited grin. "Ready?" she asked.

Helga's grin was answer enough. Rowena popped the cork stopper out of the potion bottle and poured it over the blade. The metal hissed and sputtered as Helga began chanting in Latin. Godric tried to translate it, but he was rusty and the curvy woman was speaking fast. He caught the words "enemy", "catch", "defenses", and a word that could either mean "slice" or "goose", he wasn't sure. Sal was watching the proceedings with his brow furrowed and thoughts whisking past his dark eyes a mile a minute.

Helga abruptly stopped chanting and nudged her foot over one of the lines forming the dirt star, ending the spell. The blade hummed with magic and Rowena grinned wider. She muttered a quick spell, and when the sword glimmered with reddish light, the woman held the sword to her palm. With a quick, decisive motion, she slit her palm open with the tip. Another, equally quick episkey later sealed it up, leaving a silvery white scar.

When Helga began taking down the wards, Godric started. "That's it?" he asked skeptically. "No explosions, dramatic shrieks, or unholy demons summoned from the very depths of Hell?"

"You realize we're pagans, yes?" Helga replied dryly. "Witchcraft and Christianity don't mix."

"Yes, but—"

Sal silenced him with a long-fingered hand on his arm. "Godric has," he hesitated, searching for a polite, non-offensive word, "a peculiar view on how religion and magic intersect."

"Exceedingly peculiar," Godric agreed.

"Well then," Rowena said, amused. "Yes, Godric, that was it." She handed the sword back to him.

"What did you do to my sword?" he asked, taking the hilt gingerly.

"Nothing that will impact its performance," she said, her voice still amused. "In fact, your sword should work just fine, if not better than before."

Sal snickered.

Godric shot him a dark look as a twinkle appeared in Rowena's eye. "If it wasn't performing to your expectations, we could add some enhancement spells on it as a thank-you," Helga added, her own eyes dancing merrily.

Godric flushed a dark red and shoved his sword into its scabbard. "I think I'll manage," he blustered, much to Sal's amusement.

It was only later, after the two wizards had Apparated home, that Godric realized the two witches had, rather skillfully, managed to deflect the conversation from the ritual. He opened his mouth to tell his best friend this, but Sal only smiled at him. "I recognized the ritual," he said, having read the thoughts going through Godric's mind as expressions of embarrassment, puzzlement, and indignation had flashed across his face.

Godric breathed a sigh of relief. "Well?"

"Your sword was made by a goblin," Sal said. "Goblin-forged blades tend to absorb the qualities of this they stab. The ritual they used was developed to take advantage of this quality. That potion Rowena imbued the blade with was a curious mixture of blood, magic, and a delayed Tracking Charm. She sliced open her hand to complete the ritual, both offering a blood sacrifice and keying the charm to her person. The two of them were looking for someone."

"But why couldn't they just use that spell?" Godric wondered.

"That is where the chant comes in. The person they were tracking has extensive defenses, and the sword you bear is extremely good at cutting through wards and the like. The chant was meant to direct the sword's magic to slice through their warding and allow the Tracking Charm to take hold. And knowing their profession, it's very likely we just helped them find their next target."

Godric groaned. "Lord absolve me of my sins," he muttered. He hadn't exactly thought of the implications of helping mercenaries were, an unfortunate side-effect of his rather shortsighted view of the future.

Sal laughed. It was a loud thing, one that filled the air and Godric's ears and made him, impossibly, smile—because nothing in this world quite sounded like Salazar Slytherin's laugh when he was alone. Or when he was with Godric.

Sal wheezed. "You're telling me you didn't think through the implications of helping assassins? Bleeding assassins, Godric, who needed your magic sword for a complex blood ritual. I know you don't think too far ahead, but even this is a bit much!"

And Godric started laughing too.


	4. Rowena's Second Interlude

Rowena's Second Interlude

 **A/N Hi! I'm Aurelia, and I share an account with the often-absent Midnight. This is my story, but follow us if you want to read a story about Hogwarts during WWII—that'll be Midnight's, and will be on our profile in the coming weeks.**

The very first formative moment in Rowena's life was the death of her parents. The second, her apprenticeship to a crotchety wizard two towns over. The third, though she wouldn't know it for decades, was the day that stranger came.

The fourth came a little after the end of the year she called, in the privacy of her own mind solidly fortified with mental shields, her year of imprisonment. The day had finally come when she could escape.

Where she could escape the boredom plaguing her, the mundanity of living almost exclusively with non-magicals, and a town holding far too many painful memories. Perhaps the only thing she was reluctant to leave behind was the strange old woman who foretold events both years in the making and years ahead.

Her goodbye to Fiona was quick, almost impersonal, but for the small smile the old woman allowed onto her wrinkly face. A small, mysterious smile. It spoke of things the woman knew and had not shared.

It infuriated Rowena, but she would never say that out loud. And that didn't matter, not really, because Fiona probably knew. "Godspeed, girl," said the witch, and clasped Rowena's hand. "May both safety and good fortune hand follow you."

"If they follow behind, how will they reach me?" Rowena asked, wryly. Fiona laughed. "You have some humor yet," she said, and bid her farewell once more. Sweeping her cloak about her shoulders, Rowena left the woman's living space and walked to the road. She would travel the main branch and try to find some traveling companions. Though introverted and aloof, Rowena understood the strength in numbers she needed to keep herself safe. Yet she had no idea where she would go, what she would do, who she would meet—and the uncertainty was refreshing. She had lived in a town where your life was often premeditated by who your parents were and how much money you had. It was a fate Rowena had refused to accept.

She had been lucky, she knew. Most magical orphans would never have gotten the chance to be apprenticed, much less to a competent master. Most magical orphans, in fact, never learned to use their magic. Accidental magic would be the limit of their powers, unless they were especially bright and/or powerful and learned a sort of control over it. But without a master, the road would be exceedingly difficult. A master helped you make your first wand, taught you Latin, showed you magical plants and animals, and explained the theory behind all of it.

So Rowena had been lucky. Very, very lucky that she had been given the opportunity to create her own destiny, and she'd be damned if she let that chance go to waste.

But what to do, now that she was free of her past? Other than travel to try to find work…?

Rowena knew that she never, ever wanted to be a mediocre witch living in a tiny cottage in a town, or in the woods, making a living by selling potions to the non-magicals, or by performing parlor tricks. No, Rowena wanted to be _great_.

Perhaps adventuring would be a good career choice, she mused. Gallivanting through the land, looking for trouble? Hoping that safety would follow slowly enough behind that trouble managed to find her first?

She was a relatively attractive young woman currently traveling alone in the Scottish wilderness.

If trouble didn't find her, she must have some incredible luck.

And trouble did find her, about a week later. She was still sticking to the main road but had not come across any other travelers she could join, and that day, she had decided to walk even into the twilight.

Her first warning was a prickly feeling at the back of her neck and a chill down her back. Something was wrong.

She pulled her wand out of her boot but kept it hidden under her cloak. Her second warning was the sudden absence of animal sounds from the glen and forest around her. She hadn't noticed it before, but with her senses kicked into adrenaline-fueled hyperdrive, it was glaringly obvious.

Either a magical creature or powerful magician, she thought.

Her third (and last) warning was the bright jet of red light sent streaking for her, only to rebound off of a silently-cast _Protego_ charm. Her mind whirred as she cast a Seeing-Enhancement charm on her eyes and glanced around her.

Red jet of light. Common dueling spells with a red jet—Disarming Charm, _Stupefy, Vermillious_ —no smoke, not _Vermillious_ then—none were lethal, she concluded.

So her assailant was not dueling to kill. Alright, Rowena could work with that. " _Fumos_ ," she whispered, creating a smokescreen around her. She reinforced her Shield Charm and waited. In the twilight, it was near-impossible to aim with any form of accuracy—the smokescreen would only make it worse. She then aimed a Blasting Curse over to the left. The noise would mask the quiet pop of her Apparating onto a sturdy-looking tree branch. Sloppy, she noted. If her attacker had really wanted to capture her, he would have set up Anti-Disapparition Jinxes.

She could have just Apparated away, but she was curious. Who had wanted to capture her? Bandits?

But Rowena knew of no gang of magical bandits.

The enhancement spell on her eyes allowed her to peer, hawklike, at the man who had tried to either Disarm or knock her unconscious.

Tall, lanky, armed with a sword. Most definitely white. Poor, if she was only going off of his clothes.

And _young_ , Rowena was surprised to note. Her age, maybe a little older—so in his early twenties or late teens.

Rowena, herself, was nineteen. Having finished her apprenticeship several years earlier than most, surprising everyone but her master, she was often underestimated. She certainly didn't look like a witch who had finished both her apprenticeship and imprisonme—sorry, _service year_.

Some impressive looking scars too, as she saw when he turned in her direction to survey the treeline. Don't look up, she prayed.

Impulsively, she checked the moon. Better to be safe than sorry, especially with the recent influx of werewolves and vampires into Scotland.

A gibbous moon. She let out an almost imperceptible sigh of relief, but cast scent-masking spells about her person and a Camouflage Spell, just to be safe. She watched as the man surveyed his surroundings again and huffed in frustration. He took out his wand and— _shit!_

" _Homenum Revelio._ " the man said, and his head whipped around to where Rowena was hiding in the trees. Almost panicking, she attempted to Apparate away. Before she could muster the concentration, however, wards slammed down for an undefined radius. Rowena cursed some more, which was decidedly unladylike of her. Why hadn't she just Apparated away when she had the chance?

Another jet of red light came for her, then two more. He was _fast, damn it!_ Rowena poured more energy into her shields and watched them rebound before reaching for another branch. Why had she thought Apparating into a tree was a good idea, again? She sent a jet of red light of her own at him, before shimmying to the ground. Her cloak caught on several other small branches and she felt twigs in her hair.

" _Bombarda!_ " she yelled, hoping to destabilize the ground at his feet. His shield, however, deflected it. They traded spells for several minutes after, and Rowena felt herself tiring. A whole day of walking had sapped her energy, and it was exceedingly difficult to perform in long duels if you were tired.

Tired and out of practice, Rowena silently admitted to herself. Dueling magicians ridiculously lacking in skill couldn't really be counted as practice.

The man got the upper hand when she dodged one of his spells, rather than countering or shielding it. The beam of light boomeranged back around and struck her in the back.

The last thought sent spiralling through her quickly darkening mind was one cursing the man's ancestry.

Rowena woke to an aching back and darkness. As her mind slowly brought itself back to full capacity, she tried to take in what sensory information she could.

Dark. Very, very dark. She must be in a room of some kind...and it must be night. But judging from the soreness, she had been sitting in the same position for a while. So a day must have passed.

Rowena felt the tugging of ropes around her. An _Incarcerous,_ she thought. Her back was sore from where the spell hit her. A strange, boomeranging _Stupefy_? She was still in the same clothes as when she was attacked, thank God. No wounds other than the sting of rope burn. She was thirsty, she realized.

Her wand was missing from her person. It wasn't in her boot or in her pocket, so he must have taken it. " _Accio_ wand," she whispered, clenching one fist and trying to channel the magic through a single finger. Wandless magic had never come naturally to her. She had practiced it during her year of imprisonment, but not as much as she should have. But only part of it was a lack of practice—wandless magic required a larger magical core than if the user had a wand. Without the conduit, more magic was needed to direct the flow of power. Rowena simply didn't have the reserves or stamina. It infuriated her.

She tried again, searching for the soft magical glow that sang to her. She had made it herself, after all.

Rowena held the image of her wand in her mind—walnut, 11 inches, dragon heartstring—and tried once more to summon it.

And nothing. Damn, damn, damn!

Rowena blew out a trembling breath. To panic now would be to accept the fate ahead of her, and the one thing Rowena Ravenclaw refused to do was to accept a destiny that wasn't hers.

If her parents had lived, Rowena would have wandered the land with them. According to the villagers who had known them, if briefly, her parents had been flighty souls who never put roots down in one place. If Rowena had remained an orphan, any number of things could have happened to her—she could have been enslaved, for one. Or she would have died on the streets. And if Rowena had stayed in the town her parents had died in, she would have gone insane from boredom.

To remain captured meant being at the mercy of others. All of these ideas clashed violently in the witch's mind, all of them against everything she stood for.

Breathing slowly and keeping her slowly spiralling mind under rigid control, Rowena looked at her bonds and tried a _Finite Incantatem_.

No dice.

Gritting her teeth and feeding her magic with panic and anger, she _pushed_ the magic through her finger and yelled, " _Finite_!"

The ropes disappeared and Rowena bounced to her feet. She held out her hand, concentrated, and whispered a _Lumos_ —the one wandless spell she could do easily. A witchlight appeared in her palm, and she examined her surroundings again. It was a hovel, she thought wryly. The floor was dirty and the walls looked like they were in danger of caving in. There was the door, made of flimsy-looking wood. In the corner was what looked like a broken, fragmented wand. Scrappy-looking drapes covered the window, which was far too small to climb out of.

Rowena stepped to the door and tried to push it open, but the wood didn't budge. She didn't trust herself with an _Alohomora_ , so she tried kicking it at it. The whole structure shuddered every time she touched the wood.

Not good. One wrong blow and the hovel might come tumbling down onto her head. Was there any other was out? Without her wand, Rowena couldn't apparate.

She swore and glanced around again, her witchlight brightening in response to her mounting anger. She needed a wand, damn it! Something to channel her magic with.

Could she _make_ a wand, then? To make a wand, one needed magical wood and a substance from a magical creature. Magical wood, she could do. She grabbed the broken wand from the corner and looked at one of the halves. The core was absent, presumably having dried up. Wands needed a substance from a magical creature to power the core.

Wincing, Rowena pulled out several strands of black hair from her plait. Weren't magicians technically magical creatures? She knew that some used the hairs of Veela and werewolves in their wands, both of which were humanoid.

She put the hairs in the small divot in one of the halves and sandwiched them. To keep it together, she tore a strip off of her cloak to tie the makeshift contraption together.

Please work, she prayed silently. She hadn't seen any sparks confirming her ownership, but maybe….

Brandishing the stick at the door, she said, clearly, " _Alohomora_ ," and watched, tense.

Please work.

Please work.

Please work.

She heard a distinct _click_ and rushed to the door, pushing it open. She breathed in the scent of fresh air and moonlight, and felt a grin spread across her face. She had done it!

Right outside the door lay...her wand? She picked it up and relished in the familiar glow of it, gripping it tightly in her right. She relegated the broken and to her left, and surveyed her surroundings.

"32 minutes, 43 seconds," came an amused voice from behind her. Rowena whipped around to rest in a defensive position, wand pointing at the man who had assaulted her earlier. He squatted on the roof of the hovel, completely at ease.

"Relax," he said, smirking. "You passed the test, and with flying colors."

A test? Rowena's mind whirred. She noted the previously-unnoticed patch on the man's shirt. A crest she had seen once before—burned into her mum's arm. Two wands crossed with a sword.

"You're a mercenary," she said, keeping her stance.

"You're a quick one," he said, smirk widening. "To be completely accurate, I'm a recruit. And so are you, Rowena Ravenclaw."

 **A note on structure: Normally, stories have a main plot with maybe a few subplots leading to the ultimate climax, plus a resolution to tie up loose threads. This story is going to follow a more anime-like plot style, with small arcs all part of one larger, defining arc. In this case, all the small arcs will be leading up to the formation of Hogwarts and Salazar's ultimate betrayal, and will follow what canon they can. Please review, it makes my day! (All of this is unbeta-ed though, so please be gentle.) 'Relia out.**


	5. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The next week or so was quiet. Sal had embarked on a new project that he kept hidden from Godric, who had taken to wandering the woods looking for magical flora and fauna. The two of them traveled often, to every corner of the Isles, but they would always come here to their base of operations. Godric liked the quiet, to be honest. When they traveled, they stayed in inns or with friends, where it was always loud. Sal liked the company, but Godric was never quite as real around strangers as he was by himself or with Sal—who had an easier time of it, given how he was almost always wearing a mask.

He had always been mysterious that way, but he was an incredibly loyal friend and Godric was glad to have him at his side on their (mis)adventures.

The peace and quiet the bearded man had been liking so much was broken at dusk on maybe the tenth day after Rowena had dropped by. He was heading outside his own small cottage to take in his laundry when an amused voice came from the roof. "Godric Gryffindor, doing laundry. How domestic."

Godric craned his neck up. "Helga," he said, surprised. "How'd you get in without tripping my wards?"

She flashed him her blinding white smile. "Tricks of the trade," she said promptly, before her eyes drooped and she started listing to the side. Godric didn't think twice, just dropped his laundry and rushed forward to catch her as she tumbled off the roof.

She landed securely in his arms, so Godric then laid her carefully on the ground. A red stain was seeping into her dress, coloring the fabric a dizzyingly bright red. Godric swore and, tossing propriety to the wind, took out his wand and cast a Cutting Curse on the dress. It ripped open at the bosom, letting the wild-haired man examine the wound bleeding freely. It was a gash just south of Helga's rather sizeable breasts, along with several, smaller cuts by her ribs.

"That's deep," Godric muttered, casting Diagnostic Charms on the wounds. Not curse-inflicted, thank the Lord, because those would have been near impossible to heal properly with the things he had on hand. But these were knife wounds, and he could deal with those.

" _Accio_ Dittany," he said, loudly and clearly. The bottle of Essence of Dittany flew into his outstretched hand. Carefully, he applied a few drops of the healing liquid to her injuries and watched as the flesh began to knit clothes. He Summoned a bottle of Blood-Replenishing Potion and, holding up the woman's head, poured it down her throat.

Godric then looked at her arm. It was clearly broken and had probably been the injury to cause her to pass out, unless she had head trauma as well. Shit, he thought. He wasn't good at dealing with broken bones. He needed Sal.

He carried Helga inside his cottage and laid on her on the bed, then twisted on the spot. With a crack, he was gone from one place and in another—on Sal's doorstep. "Sal!" he roared, pounding on the door. "You better be in there and not gathering some kind of magic mushroom!"

"That was one time," Sal said, mock-crossly, as he opened the door. "What is it?" The teasing grin on his face slid off when he saw Godric's expression. "Come on," the bearded man said, gripping Sal's arm and Side-Alonging him to his cottage. It was the fastest way to get through his heavily-fortified wards.

"Give a guy some warning—" Sal said, stumbling and cursing, as they popped into existence. Then he saw Helga on Godric's bed and was over in a flash.

"I got the lacerations, but I wasn't sure how to do her arm and she might've hit her head," Godric said. Sal was weaving a complicated web of more Diagnostics Charms around the unconscious woman, his eyes narrowed in concentration. "Concussion and broken arm, rapidly healing flesh wounds, one cracked rib," he pronounced, looking grimmer than usual. Godric winced. His spells had missed the rib.

Sal rushed over to Godric's chest of potions and threw the lid open, quickly scanning the contents. "Damn, no good," he muttered, and Side-Alonged Godric to his cottage. He Summoned a stachel and dumped several potion vials into it and a few raw ingredients Godric didn't have time to recognize.

"Let's go," he said, and latched onto Godric's forearm.

(Yes, the system was incredibly inefficient. But the two of them were incredibly wary people. Besides, if it was an emergency, they could always tear the other's wards down with brute force.)

Godric took Sal back to Helga and the man set to work. Watching Sal working was the equivalent of watching a hurricane—an exceedingly efficient hurricane. He fed Helga potions and cast several spells to slowly set the bone.

"Concussion…" Sal muttered, hands fluttering down the page of a book—when'd that get there?—"Concussion, concussion, concussion…"

The book made a thumping noise when it hit the ground of Godric's hut. Sal was out the door, running to the edge of the wards. Before he could spin on his heel and Disapparate, he called, "If she wakes up, get her to drink some water!"

And with a small popping noise, he was gone.

Godric shook his head exasperatedly. With a sigh, he bent over and picked up the book Sal had dropped unceremoniously and began flipping until he came to the page about head trauma. He ran his finger absentmindedly down the list of ingredients for a potion before his eyes widened and he stopped. "Strangleroot? Where have I heard of—" his head snapped up. He looked at Helga, then at the door, torn.

"Sorry," he said to the comatose woman, and ran out the door. His best friend would always come first.

He ran to the edge of the wards and spun. One second, he was in a sunny clearing, and the next—

He was not.

"Don't be dead," he muttered, as the tube-squeezing sensation faded and he found himself in a dark corner of the woods. He had last visited this place two years ago, where he and Sal had had a nasty run-in with an overgrown strangleroot plant.

Somebody nearby cursed, loudly, and Godric watched a bright light flare from several feet away. "Salazar," he muttered, both a confirmation and a curse, and crashed through the underbrush.

The plant had gotten even bigger in the two years since he had last seen it. Its tentacle-like appendages flailed like a malevolent octopus—or, at least what Godric could see of it. The forest was so very dark here. It smelled like rotting leaves and secrets.

" _LUMOS MAXIMA!_ " roared a familiar voice. Godric twisted to see Sal conjure a light blast from where he dangled by the ankle.

The plant recoiled as Sal blasted it again and again. " _BOMBARDA!"_ Godric yelled, aiming for what might have been the base of the plant. It seemed like several minutes of Godric and Sal tag-teaming it into submission before Godric's well-placed Cushioning Charm could catch Sal as the strangleroot released him.

" _Diffindo_ , Sal said easily, chopping off a tendril of strangleroot. The thing twisted and flailed for several seconds after being severed, causing Godric to shudder.

He rounded on Sal, scowling. "Now why'd you flit off without backup? You knew that thing is huge and dangerous."

Sal grimaced. "I thought I could handle it by my own. Besides, someone had to watch Helga. If she wakes up in your unfamiliar cottage without a familiar face, she might hurt herself."

Godric turned pale.

"Don't tell me you left her alone," Sal said, frown deepening. Without waiting for an answer, he Apparated away.

"Damn it, Sal," Godric muttered, and Apparated after him.

The two of them stumbled at the edge of Godric's wards before Godric pulled Sal through. "Gotta make that potion," he muttered. Godric settled in for a long wait.


	6. Rowena's Final Interlude

**A/N I'M SO SORRY IT'S SO LATE! I had finals, and then I wanted another chapter front-loaded before testing this one, and then I was super busy (not in that order) but here it is, finally!** **Rowena's Final Interlude**

The last formative moment of Rowena's life before she met Godric and Sal in what would someday be the western sector of the Forbidden Forest occured in a tavern.

Several months into her first year as a mercenary-for-hire, Rowena had tracked her mark to this tavern. She knew nothing about her mark, save for what he looked like and that he had pissed off some very powerful people.

Footsteps padded to the door, then paused. As part of her routine, she looked down at herself and made sure she was presentable. One night, high off the adrenaline of the chase, she had walked into the meeting place with only scraps of clothing and a tattered cloak. Rowena was the laughingstock of her particular band for _weeks_.

Some of them still occasionally called her Greens, for the color of the cloth she tied about her chest.

Bastards, she thought, pressing her lips together at the memory. Deeming herself adequate, she walked into the tavern with her head low. A head held high would attract attention, and that was the last thing anyone in her particular line of work needed.

Glancing about from under lowered lashes, she spotted her target sitting at a table in the back. He sat against the wall across from another man, this one bulky and armored. A knight…? She cursed silently. She tried to avoid using magic in public as much as possible. For doing the dirt deed in private, sure—Cutting Curse worked just as well as a knife.

But in public, a wand would just make her a target. There were non-magicals around who detested her kind, and she didn't want a confrontation. The king frowned on unregistered, rogue magicals, even though they were everywhere. The poor man thought there were only a few who weren't bound to guilds or sworn to cities.

He was, sadly, uninformed of the thousand or so witches and wizards dotting his kingdom with loyalties less tied to the Crown and more to their own interests.

So a knight was trouble indeed.

Perhaps he wouldn't stick around long? Rowena decided that waiting was the easiest option, but drafted a few backup plans just in case as she perched on the edge of a rough-hewn wooden bench. She ordered a drink but let it sit, untouched, in front of her. She couldn't afford the cloudiness of an inebriated mind.

She had a plan of attack formulated when a man plopped into the seat across from her. "This seat isn't taken, is it?" he asked.

Rowena surveyed him, eyes disinterested but mind sharp. An accomplice of her target, meant to distract her? No, he couldn't be. She still had a clear line of sight to his table.

The man who had set her thoughts awhirl was tall and broad. He had red hair down to his shoulders, wild and curling in a way that reminded Rowena of a bramble, and a red beard to match. His eyes were a bright emerald green, piercing in the way usually only century-old wizards could manage.

But what drew her eyes initially was the sword on his back. She noted Gobbledygook runes etched on the handle and the scabbard and the glittering rubies glowing in the dusty tavern light.

"No," she replied curtly, before focusing and looking for a magical aura. The feedback she got was _immense_. This man had a ridiculous amount of magical energy, and that was only the extent of his aura! His core must be massive for him to afford to waste this much magic.

Distractedly, she asked, "Does the haze of magic around you serve a purpose, or do you lack the control to keep it bound to your core?"

When she realized she had spoken aloud, her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. She opened her mouth to apologize when he laughed, a deep belly laugh that sent tingles down her spine and to her toes.

Focus, Rowena, she admonished herself.

"I lack the control," he admitted, grinning sheepishly.

He had a surprisingly earnest smile, Rowena noticed, then wrestled her emotions back into submission. To ground herself, she glanced at her target. Still talking with the damn knight—she had time.

"But you use the cloud to power the runes in that scabbard," she said, half to herself, before gritting her teeth again. Underneath the table, she checked for a Compulsion Charm. Normally her tongue wasn't this loose….

She came up with nothing.

The man's smile grew larger, delighted. "So you noticed that. Yes, I use it to power the protections on the scabbard, but I'm not so good at letting out trickles of magic. So some of it is actually being used, but most of it just kinda hangs around me."

"You must have an impressive amount of magical power," she said, amused.

He nodded, still smiling at her. "Say, what's your name? I haven't talked to another magical in weeks."

She checked her mark again, then tilted her head at the man. "My name is Rowena Ravenclaw. And you?"

She held out her hand to shake. In a move that would be emulated by men for hundreds of years, he took her hand and kissed the top of it with a glint in his eyes. "Godric Gryffindor, at your service."

Blushing furiously, Rowena asked, "The dueler?"

"The very same," he said, smile still earnest. Most men would have started smirking at this point, but not him.

"Charmed to meet you," she replied, allowing a small smile of her own. "And what of your usual second, Salazar Slytherin? The rumors say you two never leave each other's sides."

"Lies," he said promptly, surprising a laugh out of her. "Right now, he's off exploring some forest or other looking for some elusive magical creature. A Crumple-Horned Snorkack, I think he called it? There was a supposed sighting up north, so he patted me on the back and took off."

"So what are you doing then, if not dueling?" Rowena asked, curiosity piqued despite herself.

"Wandering," he said with a shrug. "Sal's not due home for a few weeks yet, so I've just been going from village to village in search of something interesting to do."

"Drinking?" Her mouth twisted wryly.

"Drinking," he agreed, and called to the bartender. With his mug of beer across from him, he looked the picture of a tavern-frequenting scoundrel. "See, Sal's got the intellectual pursuits, and I get to pursue everything else," he said, wiggling his eyebrows—completing the picture.

Rowena laughed. "I've always wondered, by the way. Where's you get that sword?"

"The conversation always turns to my sword," he said, sighing mock-exasperatedly. Rowena giggled.

Wait.

Since when did she _giggle_? She checked for Compulsion Charms again, to no avail. She took a sip of her drink to focus. It was _good_ , she realized, and took another sip.

"The story starts with this wizard I knew, lived in the fen…"

Hours passed in a flurry of conversation and an impromptu debate about the best way to draw the rune for fertility. Before she knew it, Rowena was on her third drink and drunker than a rat in a mead barrel.

"And then I found him, under a table with fifty protection wards around it muttering that the ants were coming for him!"

"Ants? Where'd he get that idea?" Rowena asked, laughing.

"No idea. Perhaps someone slipped a Paranoia Potion into his morning drink? Or maybe he was drunk."

"I'm drunk," Rowena said wittily.

"So am I!" Godric said, red-faced, and started chuckling. Rowena didn't even notice her mark slip out the tavern door. Some part of her whispered that she was going to regret tonight in the morning, but in the haze of alcohol, she ignored it.

The two of them traded banter and jokes until Godric toppled off the bench, clutching a stitch in his side. Rowena stood to help him, but swayed. The room was spinning. Not good.

She grasped the edge of the table and hobbled over to Godric and nudged his side with her foot. "Get up, you'll get stepped on!" she giggled.

"My head hurts," he mumbled. Rowena sighed. "Up you get," she said, pulling her wand out of her boot. " _Mobilicorpus!_ " she said clearly, and levitated the giant of a man until he was on his feet. "Gotta…" he said disjointedly, and stumbled to the back of the tavern. The pair of them came face to face with what would be their greatest enemy yet—a stairwell. Rowena groaned and swore, getting a laugh out of Godric. "Can't be that bad." He lifted a foot and listed to the side.

Rowena leaned against him, helping him get his balance back.

"Very bad," he muttered.

"You're drunker than I am. I'll float you up," she said, some of her logic showing through. "Can do it myself," Godric replied, about to lift his foot again.

She cast the spell before he could fall again, but she poured too much magic into it. She nearly slammed the poor man into the ceiling.

It was a wonder he didn't throw up.

Slowly, agonizingly, and with a great amount of effort, Rowena climbed the stairs. Godric pointed at a door and pressed a key into her hand.

It took her five tries to get the key into the lock, and a couple more to actually turn it. When the door finally opened, she breathed out in relief and floated Godric to the small bed. It creaked under his weight but didn't break.

She cast a quick charm to check just how inebriated she was and groaned. Far too drunk to Apparate, that was for sure. She glanced around the room but saw no furniture she could sleep on.

With a resigned sigh, she poked Godric. "Shove over," she said.

He acquiesced and moved closer to the wall. "Don't you dare squish me," she muttered, "I'll hex you." She jabbed him with her wand to prove her point.

"Yep," he said sleepily, and was out like a light. Rowena gripped her wand tight, shucked off her boots, and fell into bed. The straw poked her through the mattress but she was far too sleepy to care.

Rowena woke the next morning to the sound of Godric puttering around the room, looking for something and grumbling. Her head was pounding and everything was far too bright.

"I can't find a headache potion," he said to her, after noticing she was awake. She looked in the dirty mirror on the wall. Her hair looked like she had just fought a Hippogriff and lost.

"Shit."

Godric managed a weak smile. "Did I squish you?"

"Apparently not," she said, voice dry. Rowena had never been a morning person. She got up, swayed, and gritted her teeth.

Hungover and she had forgotten all about her target. Ren was going to be _pissed_.

"I have to go," she said. Godric nodded. "That was fun," she added, after seeing his face fall. He brightened immediately. "It was. I hope I'll see you again?"

She tilted her head, a genuine grin appearing unbidden. "I have a feeling."

Godric heard both the prediction and the promise in her words, smile widening to match hers. Rowena wiggled her slender fingers and turned on her heel, Disapparating with a pop.


	7. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Helga woke to bright light streaming in from the cottage window and a pounding headache. Had she gotten drunk the night before? She remembered going out with Rowena to that….

She mumbled a swear word. There was a noticeable gap in her memory between leaving base with Ravenclaw and finding herself injured, alone, and bleeding. But where had she Apparated to?

Wincing and cursing, she slowly swung her feet over the edge of the cot. Her ribs were very, very angry at her about this movement and expressed their displeasure in the form of stabbing pain.

Helga's head was spinning.

She braced herself for more pain as she tried to stand, only to collapse again. She hit the floorboards with a thud and a groan. Lord have mercy, that had hurt...she only lasted a few seconds before she passed out again. The last thing she saw before everything went dark was the door flying open and a blurry silhouette rushing toward her.

"Ah, damn," Godric muttered, picking up the unconscious woman and depositing her back into the bed. He cast another weave of Diagnostic Charms and checked the readings, frowning to himself as he did so. She appeared physically fine, if a bit sore from her injuries.

He hoped she'd wake up soon.

Helga church bells ringing through the soupy air. The ground was firm under her bare feet and the sky was the color of blue mixed with orange—a funny, almost-brown. She was walking.

There was Rowena, off in the distance. Helga recognized her choppy hair moving slowly in the sluggish wind. The pose, too, was all Rowena. Tall and proud, her back ramrod straight. She moved through the near fog to stand next to her friend.

"Are you safe, Helga?" the imposing witch asked.

"Most likely. I have a gap in my memories and it's annoying me to no end," Helga admitted. "And you?"

"I'm not far from where we fought."

"Ah. I'll make my way to you when I can."

"If you are not here within a day, try and find a way to warn me?" Rowena asked. Helga nodded, then smiled. "If I Apparated where I was trying to, I have possible reinforcements."

She looked at her sidelong, then groaned. "You went to Godric?"

"I tried."

"Are you sure?"

"No. Passed out again before I got a clear view of whoever's house I ended up at. There were Apparition wards, so I had to walk to this little cottage...wasn't Slytherin's, though."

"Were there carefully trimmed azaleas outside?" Rowena asked.

"I can't remember, why?"

"Godric has a thing for azaleas," Rowena said, remembering a story he had told when they were both drowning in alcohol.

" _So he was just sitting there, talking to one of my friends, when Sal catches the tail end of a conversation. 'She's the prettiest thing you'd ever see,' I say. 'All delicate pale pink and her scent is absolutely divine.' Naturally, he thought I was talking about a woman, so he sits down and asks, 'Who's the lucky lady?' I just burst out laughing. He's as confused as can be until my friend took pity and said I was talking about Helena, my favorite azalea."_

Helga shrugged, then cast a _Tempus_. "You should go. It's been nearly five minutes," she remarked.

Rowena nodded and wiggled her fingers at Helga. "Don't die," she commanded imperiously. Helga waved goodbye as the figure of her friend faded into the heavy mist. Helga decided she might as well get some real rest in the safety of her mindscape and conjured a bed and was out like a light.

She awoke sometime later to the real world and sunlight streaming on the bed. She groaned as she tried to sit up, feeling her muscles knot painfully.

"You're awake!" cried the figure by her bedside. "Sal!"

She groaned again and clutched her head. "Whoops," said the figure. She turned to look at him, and saw Godric's familiar face. She had Apparated to his cottage successfully, then. "What hurts?" he asked.

"Nngh," she managed. Godric winced in sympathy. He got up, the wooden floor creaking, and strode to the door. "SAL! You speak better Injured-Moaning then me!"

"Coming, coming!" came a faint voice from outside. Helga's head ached, God. What had that bastard done to it? It felt like he had bludgeoned her with a rock….

Sal bustled in, arms full of assorted flora. The flowers and plants were dumped unceremoniously on Godric's desk. He then bent over her, casting Diagnostics. "You're physically fine, just recovering," he pronounced, smiling. "How do you feel?"

"Nnnnnngh."

"Sounds about right," he said, nodding wisely. "You should probably go back to sleep". Helga was nodding, about to drift back into her mindscape, when she remembered. "Rowena!" she said, somewhat coherently.

"Is she okay?" Godric asked, a frown creasing his wide brow.

"Yes. I have to go to her, can't have her worrying," Helga mumbled. To the other two, it was mostly incoherent Injured-Moaning. Sal poured a quick succession of potions down her throat, muttering to himself.

"You'll see her soon," Godric promised, as she slipped back into darkness. "Message...Rowena…." she got out, looking right into Sal's eyes.

Godric looked at Sal, then back at his patient. "What do you think they got themselves into?" Godric asked his friend.

"She doesn't have any spell damage," Sal mused. "Perhaps she went after a non-magical." His fingers, pale and long, fiddled with the edge of the fraying bedsheet. "The slashes you healed before you fetched me, were those magical?"

Godric shook his head. "I didn't sense any magical residue, and they healed quickly enough. Can't have been Dark, those are difficult."

"Again with the use of the word 'dark'," Sal grumbled, shaking his head. "There's no dark or light. It's all shades of gray."

Godric shrugged. "Semantics," he replied dismissively. "It's beside the point, anyway. What's more important is how a non-magical beat two witches with high magical power?" (Godric, when given a puzzle, could be incredibly single-minded when it came to figuring it out. He was much like Sal in that regard.)

"High magical power?" Sal asked, amused.

"I read them both the other day," Godric admitted, smiling. Sal chuckled. Godric, with his aura of magical power drawn about his like a cloak, was much better at sensing both potential and what was already there. Sal, with his tendency to hide behind his Occlumency shields, preferred not to venture out and read possibly dangerous adversaries.

"Perhaps it was multiple non-magicals?" Sal wondered. "Enough of them, plus the element of surprise, could have taken them down."

"They're mercenaries. Usually they're only supposed to hunt one at a time," Godric said, eyes narrowed.

"The head trauma could be from a rock or a blunt weapon."

"Or she could have fell."

"That is a possibility," agreed Sal. "And her wand arm was the broken one. Deliberate on the part of the attackers, or from the fall?"

"Deliberate is more likely," Godric replied grimly.

"Did you recognize the flesh wounds?"

Godric thought back, using Occlumency to draw the image back into his head. "Too straight to be claw marks. Probably a blade."

Sal snapped his fingers. "The cracked rib, fractured in two places. Could that have been a fall?" Godric's eyes widened. "Likely. So the broken arm must have happened first, since any witch worth her salt could conjure a shield."

"They broke her arm, cut her up, and then she fell, maybe trying to get away. She cracked a rib and hit her head," Sal summarized.

"Why didn't she Apparate?" Godric wondered aloud.

"Either she was in too much pain to risk getting splinched or she didn't want to leave Rowena," Sal answered.

Godric snorted. "Must've been some fall." Sal let out a grim laugh, then frowned. "How are we supposed to get a message to Rowena, though? It's not like we could Apparate to her."

Godric thought for a second, then lifted his wand. " _Accio_ map," he said clearly, and a weathered, beaten-up scroll came zooming into his hand. He spread it out on his desk, doing his best to avoid Sal's harvest.

"How far can a typical witch Apparate?" he asked Sal. "An injured typical witch," he then clarified.

Sal took out his own wand and cast a glowing radius around Godric's cottage. "Typical witch," he murmured, then shrank it down substantially. "Injured witch."

"She can't have fallen and injured herself like this in a meadow or in a forest," Godric said, drawing glowing red slashes over several locations.

"There were pine needles in her hair," Sal said, and circled a few locations in bright green. There were three places where evergreen trees grew—the edge of the valleys to the north, the western foothills, or the beginning of the mountain ranges after the foothills.

"You really need to invent a locating spell," Godric commented dryly.

"Shut it, you. We'll just have to check each place one by one."

"Or, you know, we could wait until Helga wakes up again," Godric said. Sal gave him a calculating look. "We could, but there's no telling when that is."

"She just woke, though."

Sal shrugged. "There's still extensive repair to be done on her rib and I'm not sure how much damage she sustained to her head. She'll be asleep until the potions have run their course and then some as her body tries to fix itself. It could be days."

Godric looked at the peacefully sleeping woman and sighed. "Rowena's probably worried about her," he said quietly. Sal just watched him, content with whatever decision Godric made. Sometimes they made the call together, sometimes it was Sal's to make—but usually, he followed Godric's lead. That man was all fire and energy and leaking magic, and dreamer's eyes hiding how sharp his mind was underneath. Sal was someone who liked puzzles. He would do whatever it took to figure someone out—he would take apart their gears just to see what made them tick. Once he had, he would grow bored and move on to someone new.

But Godric he never bored of. Godric, familiar and yet so full of surprises. Godric's smile, full of mischief and charm. That kind of charm didn't let you escape its grasp.

"We'll look for Rowena," he said finally, jolting Sal out of his reverie. "I'll take the foothills."

"I'll take the northern valleys," Sal agreed. "Meet back here in four hours so we can check the base of the mountains together?"

Godric nodded. "Do you have some sort of alarm ward that'll tell us if she wakes up?"

Instead of responding, Sal waved his wand over Helga's unconscious body. "Touch it," he said, pressing his lips together as he held the spell. Godric reached out a hand.

"No, you idiot, not with your hand!" Sal scowled. "With your _magic_."

Godric winced sheepishly and closed his eyes, concentrating. He let a bit of the miasma of magic around him reach out and touch the ward, which, in his mind's-eye, felt a bit like a thrum—the kind of feeling in your chest when you listen to loud music.

Sal let the spell go and Godric felt it settle around Helga like a blanket. "There," he said, tucking his wand back into his pocket. "Now it's keyed to you, too. Your magic tying into it gives me a marker so I'm not stopped by your wards. If we feel it tug—"

"We Apparate back here," Godric finished. Sal grinned at him. "Bet you a bottle of Felix I find Rowena before you," he taunted.

"Deal," Godric said, with an answering grin. The two of them twisted and Apparated away with a quiet pop.

Godric's wards were different from the usual in that his Anti-Apparition ward disrupted your concentration. You could Apparate in but splinch yourself severely. The reason his alarm spell would let him in was became it gave him a marker to concentrate on, like a string to follow. It was an easy enough hole to exploit, but the spells were so strange and convoluted (as Godric had invented them himself without thought to efficiency or ease of use) that no wardbreaker would think of it. Besides, you'd have to first get into his house to cast a marker.

The first thing Sal felt when he appeared just south of the first valley was the cold. It was an almost sentient kind of cold, that twisted and darted and froze your underpants off. It sunk into his pale skin as the wind bit at his cheeks.

"Trust Godric to take the warmest spot," he grumbled, then started casting. It was true that he hadn't invented long-range locating charms yet, but he knew a couple short range-ones for detecting human life. If worse came to worst, he could always try Summoning her or her wand.

" _Homenum Revelio_ ," he murmured, swishing his wand through the wintry air. That spell had a range of approximately a quarter of a mile if he pushed it.

It cast a circle with him as the center. A square would be much more effective for scanning this area. Yet if he used up his magical energy to push the magical field into a square, the range would shrink.

Damn. He didn't have the time to do the calculations in his head. So he kept the circular field but mapped out the area he needed to cover. One of the great benefits of strong mental shields was the discipline needed to keep them up extended to anything he needed to use his brain for. Sal conjured up an image of the map from Godric's cottage in his mind's-eye, then plotted out the route he'd take to cover as much ground as quickly as possible.

" _Homenum Revelio!"_

Pop!

" _Homenum Revelio!"_

Pop!

An hour later and Sal had had no luck locating the errant assassin. He cursed. He'd covered a twelfth of the valleys, and at this rate it'd take him days to sweep the place. Concentrating, he tried his strongest Summoning Charm.

" _Accio_ Rowena's wand!" he cried. Nothing. Not even a tug on his magic. She must be supremely out of range, and that spell had a radius of about 5 miles when he tried. But it was touchier than the Human-Presence Revealing Charm, so the range was a bit more difficult to calculate. It would also shrink as he used up energy, making it harder to sweep the valleys. But _Homenum Revelio_ was far too slow.

He cursed again and Apparated a few miles away.

Godric, meanwhile, was having more luck than Sal with finding Rowena. With his far larger magical reserves he could expand the range of his _Homenum Revelio_ to encompass a disk of land three-quarters of a mile wide. He was concentrating on the sparks of magical energy in his blood, channelling it through his wand, when he heard rustling from his left.

Abruptly, he cut off the spell and winced at the backlash as the magic snapped into him like a rubber band. "Who's there?" he asked, casting a nonverbal Shielding Charm.

"Godric? Thank God," came a familiar voice. Rowena stepped out of a copse of pine trees, shaking needles out of her choppy hair. Godric relaxed, putting his wand arm down, but didn't let down his _Protego_ before he could get a chance to look at her.

Rowena glanced around. "Where's Sal?" she asked. Godric saw how her wand was holstered and that she lacked any other weapons. She was covered in scrapes and bruises, and she favored her right leg.

"Looking for you in the valleys," Godric replied, dispelling his shield and coming over.

"Is Helga—"

"She woke up briefly, but went back to sleep. Her injuries were severe."

Rowena breathed out a sigh of relief. "She'll be fine, then," she murmured, before stumbling to the ground. She swore, trying to fold her legs in a way that wouldn't put too much pressure on the one she favored. "Why haven't you healed yourself?" the big man asked, before dropping to his knees and casting basic healing spells to take care of her superficial injuries.

"Magic exhaustion," she replied, grimacing. "My concentration's shot, so I don't trust myself to Apparate."

"And you had to wait for Helga," he finished. "Can I get a look at your leg?"

She nodded, so Godric cast a charm that would later become the basis of the X-Ray Diagnostic Spell used by healers the world over. The bone in her leg was fractured in two places.

"How the hell are you still standing?" he asked, shocked.

"Numbing Charm," she muttered. "I'm keeping any sensation from that leg from reaching my brain."

Godric whistled and began to cast, healing her more superficial injuries. "I'll need to get Sal to look at your leg," he said. " _Ferula_." The spell splinted Rowena's leg then wrapped it in bandages. "I'll Apparate you back to the cottage," he said, and picked her up bridal-style.

"You're kinda heavy," he noted with the same candor he applied to everything.

Rowena laughed weakly as the two of them disappeared from one place and ended up somewhere else entirely.

Godric stumbled into being in his cottage, almost dropping Rowena and jostling her leg. "Owww," she groaned.

"Sorry, sorry!" the big man yelped, before attempting to Transfigure his desk into another bed for her. Rowena narrowed his eyes at him as he lay her on the bed.

"Now, how to summon Sal…" he murmured, twirling his wand idly. With a wave, he tugged on the magical threads of the alarm spell on Helga, coaxing them away. Once they were far enough from Helga to minimize any strange side effects, he snapped the threads. Sal would feel his spell coming down and Apparate in.

Sure enough a few seconds later Sal was in his cottage, his wand at Godric's throat. "Easy, easy," he replied, backing up slightly.

"Oh. You found her at the foothills, then?" he asked.

Godric flashed him a roguish grin. "You owe me a bottle of liquid luck."

 **A/N Why is this chapter so late? School's ending in a couple weeks so every loose thread has been coming together, personal issues, and also my geometry teacher decided dumping a butt-ton of homework on us was a good idea. Why is this chapter so much longer than usual? Well, it just felt like the best place to end it. And switching my updates to a biweekly schedule works a lot better. Updates are on Sundays (usually). Reviews are love.**


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